The Israel Dog Unit (IDU), a nonprofit specializing in search and rescue, has successfully completed a series of exercises intended to develop and refine its capabilities in the event of a building collapse. An intensive day of training was carried out at the Ne'urim disaster training installation near Netanya, which uses heaps of rubble from demolished buildings to simulate the aftermath of a multi-story collapse for use in training by the IDF Home Front Command and other disaster relief organizations.
IDU volunteers and their working dogs experienced several different levels of training, including exposing dogs to the unnatural environment of a rubble heap for the first time, complicated canine searches to locate victims under the rubble, and the use of cadaver scent to simulate finding those who did not survive the collapse.
The exercise included the four-footed heroes Sniper and Kelly, two IDU working dogs who have found missing people in the past.
IDU director Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov commented, "It is of critical importance that both our dogs and our volunteers be ready for any incident."